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Saturday, December 3, 2011

25 Days of Christmas and Holiday Series: Day 3

Christmas Memories Photo Pennant Banner

Banners have been all the rage this year. We have seen them made in almost every type of material possible, from paper to fabric and even scrap bead board. They are made to celebrate a birthday, season of the year or just a nice way to finish off a room.

Today I want to show you my Christmas Memories Photo Pennant Banner and give you some tips to help you make your own. The look of my pennants are holiday, but the images that I chose are a sampling from over the years in our family that are not necessarily Christmas related. I decided to scour our old photographs, especially some of the more obscure ones that didn't make a frame or scrapbook throughout the years. I gotta tell you, I got choked up many times looking through these images. My kids are teens now and boy how time has flown by!

The key to making this super interesting is to zero in on a 'theme' for the images you chose. My theme is "Happiest Moments." I only chose photos that were from the happiest moments in our family... The times that we still talk about...the memories that have endured because when looking back, they were the "good stuff."

Here are a few examples of themes you might want to highlight.

1. Vacations through the years

2. My photo with Santa - Collect up all those fun Santa and Me photos on a banner.

3. A collection of photos with a particular family outside your relatives. Have you traveled with another family often throughout the years? Perhaps concentrate on a collection of those images. (Might even make a great gift idea!)

4. Cousins

5. Grandma and Grandpa (another gift idea?!)

6. Silliest or Ugliest Faces - Pull on images of people making faces. Could be crying babies, scared face on a carnival ride, the tongue out to the side face, a photo with an expression that was too extreme to make it into a frame or scrapbook page. You know what I mean...silliness, fun!﻿

Collect up more images than what you will need because some of them will not fit inside the parameters of a pennant and will get eliminated in that process. Here is the materials list...Materials
Photos (more than what you need)
Scrap Holiday Fabrics and burlap
Alene's Fabric Glue (or any glue)
Scissors
Pinking Shears (nice to have)
White Copy Paper for making templates
Clothes pins (optional)
Decorative Paper (optional)

First make your templates out of copy paper. You can make your pennants whatever size you want. Mine are a finished size of about 4 1/2 wide by 5 1/12 tall. The frame (burlap) is about 3 3/4 inches wide by 4 1/2 tall. The photo triangle template is about 2 1/2 inches wide by 3 1/2 inches tall. The photo template was simply cut out of the frame template.

The reason I cut the center of the frame template out is because I wanted to use it as a 'photo frame finder.' I used this template to help me find which photographs were going to fit. Let me show you want I mean.

However, when you cut out the burlap that is the matting on the pennant, you ignore the void in the middle and only use the outside of the template as your guild. Notice the burlap above do NOT have the center cut out! Don't do that. Your image will lay on top of that piece of burlap making it appear as a matting.

Cut all your parts out, the pennant backing, the burlap frame (or matting) and the little images in the triangular shapes. I made 13 pennants. Obviously you can make however many you want.

I used pinking shears on the pennant fabric for two reasons, it eliminates frayed edges and adds a decorative touch. I used a regular scissors to cut out the burlap and the photos.

Assemble your individual pennants by putting a thin bead of glue along the edges of the burlap triangles and attached them to the fabric pennant backing. (I prefer to use Alene's Glue for fabric crafts because it dries clear and has a tendency to be flexible, not stiff. You can use whatever you like.) Then glue the images down to the surface of the burlap.

For the rope that your pennants will be attached to, tear 1/2 inch wide strips from the leftover fabric in the length you want your banner. At this point, you can chose a myriad of ways to attach your pennants including hot glue, staples, a hand stitch...on and on. I chose to use clothes pins because I like the way they look and they give me the flexibility to adjust the space between the pennants after the banner is hung up.

I have a package of decorative paper and I remembered that there was a page intended for an advent calendar project that I didn't feel like making. Since I thought it would be neat to number my pennants, I cut the numbered squares out with my pinking shears and attached the squares to 13 clothes pines.

Many of you have fireplace mantels and neat hutches and such to display your Memory Photo Banner. I, however, live in Florida where fireplaces aren't prevalent. I decided to hang my banner to the front of the large desk that displays half of my Christmas in the City collection.

Here it is attached to the desk...

A few details....

My son who is now 17 years old. These are
daddy's glasses he wanted to try.

My daughter graduating from
Kindergarten. What a huge deal that was back then...

This is my daughter and a friend taken years ago. I chose this image because this little
girl is still close with my daughter. Through many changes, many friends have faded.
But this friendship has always endured.

Years ago in Alaska. We travel a lot as a family. I think travel is the best education.
There are other travel images on this banner as well.

There are a thousands ways to pull off your own Photo Memory Banner and make it your very own. Hopefully this tutorial and list of theme ideas inspired you today to create one for yourself or a friend or family member. It's a meaningful way to display your memories....and what are the holidays about without the memories....

I concur with Sue. Giving you a bunch of photos and I would like my banner by this evening! hehe. Neat idea, esp with those pics that don't make an album. What do you do with that batch? Why make a banner of course! Nice!